COOL like mi wash mi face with the cake soap...

I didn't intend to blog about this, but some of my followers (on twitter) urged me to and I'm tired of hearing about / reading all that people have to say and sitting on my opinion... So, here goes

Vybz Kartel (Adidja Palmer) came to the University of the West Indies on the 10th of March after an invitation from Carolyn Cooper, lecturer of the Reggae Poetry course offered by the cultural studies department. From it was published in the paper that Kartel would be coming to UWI 'hate mail' in all forms began surfacing. Persons were tweeting how could UWI invite such a person to speak and what has the university become. Then came the BBM statuses and broadcast messages bashing even Carolyn Cooper for inviting him.

But, whatever! People will say whatever and do whatever, especially when they have not read and understood the context. Carolyn Cooper, as I stated, is the lecturer of the reggae poetry course and she invited Kartel to speak to her class (that is the REGGAE POETRY CLASS)about his life and his career. Clearly, since Kartel is such a popular artist it would not be plausible for this lecture to be held in their classroom, because even if it was to be a "secret" it would get out and there would be a great crowd. So, it was a public lecture. 500 chairs were set out, look at some of the pictures I took of the crowd (with my phone):

Due to an error, all the photos I had were deleted, but I managed to find this one online, 
borrowed from
Annie Paul's blog post

Easily over 1000 (ONE THOUSAND) people were there. Steven Jackson of the Daily Observer, wrote in today's paper that the crowd was "apparently larger than the university's annual graduation held in the same venue". Is he saying that the entire faculty of students and their families (in attendance) each year is less than 1000 - somehow I doubt this and it is not the exact location, graduation is kept on the lawn by the undercroft, not in the actual undercroft.

Anyway, let's not get technical. The lecture was titled:

PRETTY LIKE A COLOURING BOOK

I believe he held his own and came there to speak about what he was asked to. He touched on controversial topics like his bleaching, his tattoos and the claims that he worships the devil because it is a part of his career and some of the reasons people are so intrigued by him.

The lecture was just like any other guest lecture, people however were expecting different things from it. He didn't contact UWI on his own to say he wanted to talk and he didn't take suggestions on what we wanted him to talk about, no... he was invited to do this for such and such a purpose.

Persons, however believed that he should have dispelled all rumours and set the record straight. But, lest we forget he is so popular because he is controversial. If he gave us straight yes and no answers for all the things he is suspected of in the media then would he continue to be such a "hot topic"? Yes, he is a "lyricist, vocabulary physicist" (as one of his latest songs suggests) and although this will keep people interested, the fascination comes from all the things people speculate about him.

No matter where this "lecture" was held it would have yielded the same result because Kartel isn't engaging us in a game of truth or dare but is appeasing our appetite to some extent but not feeding us fully, so we are still left to wonder, we are still unsure, we are still enthused and we are still wondering, still hanging on to his every word.

No matter how "crawny" you think Kartel is or has become, he is successful at whatever it is he is doing to the Jamaican people and although I agree that in most cases it is wrong they need to realize that it is wrong also. We can't solely blame Kartel (or the dancehall music industry, for that matter) for the problems among youth (even those who openly sing every line of his songs) because parents are not properly socializing their children, so they turn to a constant in their life: Kartel's music.

Many may be in disagreement with the University for agreeing to host this lecture, but shouldn't UWI be the place to foster open-mindedness? When doctors at UWI discover a cure, when lawyers from UWI graduate with honours, when a UWI graduate becomes Rhode scholar it is a big thing, a great thing... but when UWI invites the self-proclaimed "dancehall hero" to speak at an open/ public lecture it is the worst thing they can ever do? What now about mental slavery, classism and backward thinking, which we were supposed to be free from?

Even those claiming that this lecture was adding to his "fame", so what if it did? His name will always be in headlines and he has made sure of that (the braces he didn't need and the bleaching are examples), so if it wasn't this lecture it would have been something else.

Personally, I am glad I attended the lecture and praise heavens my friend, Ann, got us FRONT ROW seats :D. I am glad I attended not only because it was the first I was seeing "brown Kartel" in person, but I felt like it was a part of history and I'll be able to tell my children and grand children about it some day (not that they would care) and it also enlightened my darkness on certain issues (some of which I have spoken about here).

In essence, I saw no problem with the invitation for lecture, or the lecture itself. What I had a problem with was the audience's response (especially the UWI students) to Kartel; however in the words of this dancehall artiste turned lecturer "the details of which will be recipe for another lecture"... thus I will end there.